William E. Caley

William E. Caley

"History of Huntington County, Indiana"1914 By Frank S. Bash pg.784-85

William E. Caley. The Caley family has been identified with this section of Indiana for seventy years. The family home throughout most of this time has been in the western section of Wells county, and Mr. William E. Caley spent part of his active career in Wells county, and part of it in Clear Creek township of Huntington county. Mr. Caley now lives retired in the city of Huntington, and is a man whose substantial industry during his earlier years enabled him to acquire a competence, not only for himself but also sufficient to enable him to give his family the best of educational advantages and the fruits of a good home. Mr. Caley stands high in the esteem of the local citizenship of Huntington, and is a man whose word is regarded as good as his bond.

William E. Caley was born in Union township of Wells county, January 20, 1862. His parents were George F. and Mary C. (McBride) Caley. George F. Caley was born in Highland county, Ohio, the oldest son of Samuel B. Caley, who moved to Indiana, first locating in Huntington county, and later in Wells county. George C. Caley, who has been a resident of Wells county since 1843, is now the oldest citizen in point of years of residence in that section. George E. Caley had two sons, William E. and Samuel M., the latter being a resident of Union township in Wells county.

William E. Caley was reared on the old homestead located three and a half miles north of Markle. From early childhood until he was about sixteen, his time was divided between attendance at the district school and the lighter duties of the home farm. His district schooling was further supplemented by attendance at the Wells county Normal School, and that was followed by several years of teaching in his native county. Since then, until his retirement from active pursuit, Mr. Caley has been closely identified with agricultural management. Mr. Caley married Alice C. Hamilton, a daughter of William M. Hamilton of Warsaw, Indiana. Mrs. Caley was educated in the district schools and also the normal school. After their marriage they moved to a farm northeast of Markle, and made that their home until the spring of 1907. In that year the place was sold and the family went to Champaign, Illinois, in order that the daughters might live at home while attending the State University of Illinois. In the fall of 1911 Mr. Caley returned to Indiana, and they have since had their home in the city of Huntington. The two daughters are Floy E., who graduated from the common schools, the Markle high school, and the University of Illinois, with a degree of A.M., and is now a teacher in the Huntington high school. Mary C., whose attendance at school was along the same lines, and in the same institutions as her sister, is also a teacher, and connected with the Huntington county school. The family are communicants of the Central Christian church at Huntington. Mr. Caley still owns eighty acres of land, the west half of the northwest quarter of section 36 in Clear Creek township, and has a well improved and a highly profitable country estate, to which he gives his supervision, although nominally retired from business.